Whispers in the Dark — 100mm | f/4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/50
2020. LOL, what?!?
Yeah so this post could go a lot of ways. Each a varying degree of sideways. First off, this is my first photo and blog post of 2020. What? To be precise, first photograph made with my Canon rig, uploaded onto my Mac, and published anywhere on the internet since ::checks notes:: December—of last year. It’s April and this is finally a thing. Yeah, I was slumping something fierce.
Oh yeah, there’s a pandemic on and we’re sheltering in place. I’m into my fourth consecutive week cloistered at home—sans people. An insidious infectious disease made itself malignant and turned fast moving infecting all populations. In 2020. What?
Families, friends, and people riding solo are pulling together and reprioritizing. It took a unique crisis yet we have a singular opportunity to reassess life, purpose, consumption, government, health and health care,—a comprehensive reimagining of society. It is time to challenge conventional wisdom. What is the future we want?
The exceptional thing about living through history is having, if only in a small way, the rare chance to shape it. By staying home, observing social distancing protocols, calling a friend, keeping a journal, checking on a neighbor, telling someone you love them, taking a walk, or making a photograph. Small acts when executed across communities and continents affect real change in response to an entirely new environment. Rough times may indeed be ahead, but we can pull together if we choose it. What will history say about us other than what?
Happy accidents are a thing. Bob Ross was right, because, well of course he was. Made on August 18, 2019, this photograph happened on your typical balmy late summer afternoon. Heat and humidity do wonderful things to camera and lens gear left napping within under cool, air conditioned climes. And by wonderful things I mean annoying, undesirable scientific reaction type things. Cool glass, you see, is want to put on a water condensation show and fog up with pride.
This is all rather bush-league on my part, having thought I learned better long ago. Even though the preflight checklist remains the same, a lazy oversight is bound to happen. Nevertheless, it was with fogged 100mmmacro lens in hand I made some soft, almost fantastical photos of a Black-eyed Susan in my front yard. Coupled with soft focus, shallow depth of field, and boatloads of bokeh, the ample fog sets us adrift. Unmoored, we slow down, detached from our present world invited into a softer, kinder land. There is possibility here, the rough edges worked out by soft and inviting flower petals. A warm touch from a welcoming hand, asking us to join in the splendor otherwise shrouded by clarity.
Until Next Season — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/800
It is now September. This more or less puts a wrap on flower season for 2019. I have a few photographs from summer to publish here yet, but making new flower photos is all but done. Looking back on this summer’s flower shooting, I’m pleased with where I’m at. I spent more time with my 100mmmacro lens than I have in years, and made at least one photograph certain to make the 2019 best of list. I am hereby allowing myself a pat on the back.
Random musings:
The New York Giants defense is terrible; after one game in Dallas it seems we’re onto next season
The New York Yankees are good; a deep run of October baseball will be my football
I am currently listening to Mornings on Horseback on Audible; excited to learn more about Theodore Roosevelt
Did a run of Star Wars audiobooks before that (with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy mixed in)—Thrawn: Treason, Master & Apprentice, and Dooku: Jedi Lost; all were excellent. With music, sound effects, strong production values, and expert narration, Star Wars novels lend themselves well to an audio format
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was a good video game
Hollow Knight is an exceptional video game—easily in my top 5 favorites of the past decade
The Mandalorian is going to be great; all in on space western sci-fi
Despite my disappoint with The Last Jedi, I am pumped for The Rise of Skywalker
Starting my fourth week of HelloFresh™, impressed and satisfied so far
Honey bees! Working, buzzing, collecting. Pollen clinging and clumping in large, impressive blobs stuck about their legs. Dutiful, the bees worked over one flower head after another, nonstop in their quest for pollen. They did not seem to mind my presence much, either. Showing no ill will toward my camera intrusion. Though getting tack sharp focus was not the easiest considering they never slow nor settle.
But seriously, I cannot believe I have honey bees. There must have been dozens milling about the flowers strewn about my property. I never remember seeing this many honey bees in an entire season, let alone on a single day, and I have been photographic my yard extensively since 2012. My little black and yellow buds were doing their best work on my other little black and yellow buds, my Black-eyed Susan blossoms. It was awesome to watch.
Step right up and descend into the shrunken world. Together we journey top down to look upon an alien world hiding in plain sight. Let us accept this macroabstraction to challenge the mind to place what the eyes register.
And just what is it we are looking at?
For lack of proper nomenclature let’s call it a nascent honeysuckleflower in the making several days before its better known floral blossom ribbon properly unfurls. A tightly bound cluster of purplish tentacles spring sunward in a bundle not much larger than a quarter. Covering each arm of the cluster stands a ready array of tiny follicles shellacked in a sticky, pollen type substance. My mind churns. Hundreds of tiny posts hoisting a collective individuality built up the surface of a greater system of life. Down here, mired in constituent parts, we contemplate the unsung parcels that compose the greater whole.
In and out of focus mental gears grind and turn against the shallow depth of field. Tall towers jut directly toward us, escaping the foggy void to shed light on the penthouse. The near symmetry struck a shade askew lends credible structure suggesting the proper hand of purpose in its design. The fractal quality the surging towers builds upon the mathematical basis of nature.
You will get all this and more when you travel top down into the abstract world of honeysuckle macros. I hope you have enjoyed the trip.
I had leaned hard to go with a black and white treatment for this photograph. I was working a striking, high contrast low key approach with plenty of black negative space. I even tossed it to the Instagram story poll. As of this posting we are 10 votes to 4 in favor of color. Perhaps we will go top down on the black and white version some other time.
Life lessons lie in layers. It is a long game building individual layers unique to our person as we grow juxtaposed with peeling back layers of those with whom with we grow with. With time comes age and with age comes complexities. The layers of life encasing us in ever expanding experience in much the same way a tree adds rings as it marks time. Good, bad, indifferent, our layers of lived experience mold and shape our true self. They mark our journey, adding dimension with shades and highlights of color. Layers are our memoir.
This is where my mind drifts when I observe flowers loaded with layers. I imagine the story each small piece has to deal. I am tempted to pluck away at each petal, enticed to sit, listen, and learn. Tucked away in each fold are countless stories, some good, some bad—some happy, some sad. Yet even with the hardship and strife mixed in with joy and triumph, it is the great whole rendered beautiful and perfect. The stories of our lives are deep and complex, and all the endless layers lend testimony to that.
Despite my deepest wishes the flowers you see here—lily of the valley—are not late 19th Londoners bustling about Trafalgar Square. Nor are they doffed bowlers hung about a proper mahogany coat rack. No, they are something more than all that—beautiful flowers crafted by nature. Tiny reminders to look small to better see the world; to focus in to see out.
Through the years these little flower hats have caught my eye but never enough to grab the gear and make a proper photograph. That changed earlier this month. It was later in the day and the sky was overcast setting a pall over the evening. Color, light, visibility were all subtly muted adding a proper aura of melancholy. With my macro lens fixed I made it down to ground level to make frames of what I would later learn are lily of the valley flowers. Thanks Instagram friends.
I am satisfied proper with how this photograph turned out. Even before post processing I knew there was a win here. The first frame straight out of camera was money. With eight frames in all it was old number one that best hit the resonant tone of selective focus, bokeh, and light coupled with sound composition. From there it was off to Lightroom finishing school. A smidge of cross processing and contrast tweaks to finalize our array of English gents in hats. In the meantime shall we safety dance?
I’m testing out a different style of entry here. Instead of writing to some kind of set theme, I will roll with random thoughts. Plenty of notable happenings, with some long anticipated closures are worth mentioning here.
Before all that, tonight’s post—err, this morning’s as it’s already after midnight—would not have happened without some much needed prodding. Within a 20 minute span I bumped into two long time colleagues, and all around wonderful humans, who both noted my dip in photo output. It was not an admonishment so much as a hey, we miss seeing your work. Both flattered and on the spot in the best kind of way, it stuck a chord of inspiration. Knowing I had a batch of flower photos sitting on my memory card, I committed to getting a photograph posted tonight. And while it is tomorrow, I still count this as meeting my deliverable as I have not yet gone to bed.
While I knew I had some solid photos thanks to a promising wisteria blossom, I had not known I had something so to my liking. I was immediately struck by the moody, painted quality to the macro photograph. This low key, soft focus treatise on cross processing transports us into a fantasy struggle set to enchantment fighting back the melancholy invading the marches. I am lost in this photograph, and I selfishly want to see it large and on canvas.
Notable closure happening number one: The some eleven-odd year Marvel Universe journey we’ve been on culminated with Avengers: Endgame. I would be exaggerating if I claimed myself a canon expert of all things MCU. But as a casual to enthused fan it was a splendid end to some 22 films. While it ranks right behind Infinity War in my book, the movie still rocked it. What gives its predecessor the nod for me was greater depth to Thanos, and that the stakes always felt higher in Infinity War. Nevertheless, Endgame was a heck of a victory lap for a team deserved of the praise.
Notable closure happening number two:River Ave. Blues calls it quits! I’m a big-time Yankees fan all about the #YankeesOnly lifestyle. At the center of that world, orbiting only the Yankees themselves, is River Ave. Blues. The most prodigious and prolific sports blog on the internet. Run by fans but at an absolute professional level, the quantity and quality of output since I became a reader back in 2008 (maybe 2007?) is incomprehensible. That impassioned fans with inspiration and dedication could flesh out the best analysis imaginable, on a daily basis, for a marquee global franchise is an exemplar to us all. Mike and Co. deserve (an understatement) this rest, though the rest of us fans will be poorer for it. What an incredible 12 years. Fortunately Mike has set up at Patreon account at RAB Thoughts to give us a little taste of what we will miss.
Notable closure happening number three:Game of Thrones is about to end. 2010 where have you gone? That’s right, within weeks of each other the MCU and Thrones cease to be. Two of the biggest and most followed arcs in entertainment wrap it up together. Couple this with the fact that the Skywalker Star Wars arc ends this December and 2019 is hosting a year of film making closures unlike any other. It is the definition of bittersweet that we have these long, involved, and emotional stories sing their song in full measure, though never again will hear their music the same way again.
I rather enjoyed this open format, free form posting. I will be doing it again.
Whether you are hanging your heart on the line. Or drying out ye old heart machine on the laundry line of love. You are putting your heart out there. Plugging away in a world tugging on the old heartstrings. Whatever witty claim the written word could pose, bleeding hearts pluck a fancy and leave a calm repose. A unique flower, perfect heart in shape. Coupled with a tear, emotion is its fate.
It’s fascinating how this remarkable shade loving flower mirrors the presentation of heart and love in art. Or is this another situation where art imitates life? Speaking of imitation, it is a lifelong love of The Legend of Zelda that elevates me to next level bleeding heart appreciation. They make a stunning replica of the heart containers so essential to Link’s questing success. Furthering the link, the tear is a match for the Sheikah Eye—a distinct mark of an esoteric clan orbiting the heart center of the saga.
